iVillage: Michelle Obama On Exercise and Getting Her Family Moving

Sticking to It

“What I tell them is that, you just have to stick with it. Because kids tend to quit when it starts getting hard, which means that’s when they're starting to learn something. And that’s the tough time to continue to make them go to that tennis lesson; even though Malia was complaining about it, she now loves tennis. And now she's saying, well, I'm glad you made me keep taking tennis.”

"I try to keep my weight at a certain level. And I've found that as I get older…I don't like to diet. I like food. I don't like to have to worry and count every calorie…I just don't like to live that way."

"And I also found that as I get older, I need to work on flexibility, because that's where you help to avoid injuries. So I started doing some yoga. I've done Pilates before, but I have a hard time doing both, because I just don't have the time in my schedule. But I always try to do something that really works on that flexibility leg of the fitness stool.”

“You don't have to be a weightlifter. I know a lot of women get worried about muscle definition. But actually, I’ve been told by fitness experts that the average person will not bulk up on the weights that we can lift. That's not why people bulk up. But you want to have some weight training in your routine, especially as women, to make sure we've got strong bone density. And it helps with that toning, those little areas that we don't like that flap a little bit, that aren't as tight. That's where lifting comes in, once you've gotten your cardio in there.”

"I have a pretty well rounded routine that incorporates cardio, some weights -- but nothing heavy, nothing dramatic -- and plyometrics and things like that, which is a lot of body movement. You're using your own body weight to get the exercise in.”

“Barack and I work out every day. When he isn’t traveling, that's the first thing we do. So we spend time together in the morning. I usually get to the gym before he does. But he is usually there either in the middle of my workout or right at the end. And we're watching Sports Center and we're catching up. That's why I know so much about sports, because every morning I am watching "Sports Center".'

“I bring a jump rope -- a jump rope and some of those rubber bands that you can get. They're really inexpensive. And I can usually do some rope jumping in the hotel room."

"But what people should know is that it just doesn't take much. It doesn't have to be that complicated. I mean, sometimes, if I don't have a rope or if I don't have space, I might do a 30-minute routine that includes a minute of jumping jacks alternating with a minute of pushups, or however many you can do, and then some sit-ups. And you keep doing that circuit again and again, and you'll find that you're going to build up a lot of sweat. You're going to be burning calories. And you're going to be doing it with your own body, even if you're doing squats or doing jump squats or you're doing lunges. If you set up a pattern where you're doing intervals of 30 seconds or a minute or whatever you can do in an interval setting, with a little break that's a workout.”

“We have the luxury of being able to sign kids up for activities. This is the tough thing, why it's so hard for families -- because when we were younger, you'd open up the door and kids would go out to play. Well, nobody's out playing; everybody's in an activity and it costs so much money to have them in these activities."

"Now that they're older, they're in soccer and they have Tae Kwon Do and…Malia plays tennis regularly. And as they've gotten older, they have passions of their own in sports.”

“What I tell them is that, you just have to stick with it. Because kids tend to quit when it starts getting hard, which means that’s when they're starting to learn something. And that’s the tough time to continue to make them go to that tennis lesson; even though Malia was complaining about it, she now loves tennis. And now she's saying, well, I'm glad you made me keep taking tennis.”